Published: June 28, 2007 10:42 am      

Faces of the Flood: Called into action, ‘I just did it’

Latest in a series on the 1977 Johnstown Flood

D.J. Baumgardner was a Johnstown Junior League pitcher in the summer of 1977.

But his two most important saves happened far from the baseball diamond, as the 19-year-old plucked two women from the deadly floodwaters that swept through Johnstown.

Baumgardner was working for Laurel Management Co. and had gone to sleep despite the storms that were shellacking the city on the night of July 19.

His father woke him to warn of water cascading past the family’s home along Oak Street in the city’s Hornerstown section.

“We were standing on the front porch watching this water that just kept getting higher and higher and higher,” Baumgardner said. “The next thing you know, the water was coming down so hard that vehicles were coming with it.”

Baumgardner’s car, a Chevy Vega, floated away. He, his parents and his grandparents knew they had no choice but to ride out the storm.

“We were just kind of watching it, in awe,” Baumgardner said.

Awe turned to horror when a home across the street was torn apart by the torrent.

“It’s a sound I’ll never forget,” Baumgardner said. “You know the sounds they embellish in disaster movies? It sounded just like that.”

Donna Wolf was inside that home and somehow escaped. But she was struggling for balance in the swift, high water.

Baumgardner said he simply waded across the street, then pulled Wolf back to his house. There was not much planning or forethought involved.

“I just did it, much to the chagrin of my father,” he said.

A short time later, above the roar of water and debris shaking the house, Baumgardner heard a faint cry for help.

He and his father went to the back porch.

Doris Lichtenfels, frantic and covered with mud, had been swept from her Dale Borough home into the Baumgardners’ backyard.

“You could see her,” Baumgardner said. “She was hanging onto a tree.”

There was no hesitation. Baumgardner’s father tied a rope from a 40-foot ladder around Baumgardner, who went into the water. He stayed as close to the house as he could to avoid the strong current.

“I grabbed her under her arms, and then my dad kind of pulled the rope at the same time,” he said.

Although both women likely owe Baumgardner their lives, he speaks plainly about his deeds and wants no part of any talk about heroism.

“People did much greater things than I did.”

But the 49-year-old father of two also says he likely would do the same in a similar situation.

“Maybe I’d think about it a little bit more.”